The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

2016 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 5

For today’s prompt, write a wire poem. A wire poem could be about something that needs wires–like maybe a robot, TV, or automobile. But birds huddle on telephone wires, people wire money to each other, and kids can get wired off of too much candy and/or caffeine. In fact, I’m surprised I haven’t written more wired poems over the years.

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Here’s my attempt at a Wire poem:

“Flipping Switches”

When I was young, I didn’t marvel at how electricity
traveled through wires as much as I wondered how
everything everyone used all the time could work
at the same time connected by the same wires
as if they were as constant as the sun or moon.

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of the poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He edits Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market, in addition to writing a free weekly WritersMarket.com newsletter and a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine.

He loves finding connections, whether it’s through power lines or lines of thought.

Poles line the highway
Wires strung between them
A sign of progress
Electricity had come to town
Then slowly, so very slowly
The poles started going
Down secondary highways
And then down private roads
Electricity had come to the country
A drop cord, a light bulb,
A pull string for off and on
Electricity had come to the rural
Farm house miles and miles
From town
Progress

Tension strains, chafing the
Bonds, the wires, that tie us together.
With each turn, with each crank,
The distance between us shrivels.
Slowly, inexorably, I suborn
Your will to mine.
Until, at last, I force you
To the surface and
Fate’s cruel twist intercedes
To part us, and the line.
Leaving me with humbled
Brow and dampened spirit.
And one more story to tell,
Amidst the rest,
Of the ones that got away.

WIRED
Wired insipid link to you; my heart races when you are near and I come unplugged with emotion.
But, your feelings were disconnected and short circuited from me.
Wired from your liquored love left me frazzled and befuddled. And when the buzz wore off, I was left wired and strung out.
By Pamelap

Clothos, of the mythical sisters of fate,
spun life with the thread in her magical spool-
her favorites snipped short by a sister so cruel.

Then one clever mortal asked her on a date
and she readily gave him her heart like a fool.
Clothos, of the mythical sisters of fate,
spun life with the thread in her magical spool.

And for her one true love, she worked to create
a threadlike wire to endure any tool,
forged from the waters of Narcissus’ pool.
Clothos, of the mythical sisters of fate,
spun life with the thread in her magical spool-
and kept her love safe from a sister so cruel.

I may lack Laura’s long blonde curls, wind-tossed,
her piercing bright eyes, her air that once warned
Petrarch, Stand back and gaze. Do not approach.

More like the Beloved in the Song of songs,
my hair is like a flock of goats, though I doubt
my breasts would be mistaken for twin fawns
of a gazelle. No one has ever look at my temples
and beheld the halves of pomegranates.

My love is nothing like a red, red rose in spring.
Comparisons are lost on me. Living in the present,
the literal, I’d not trade these eyes for diamonds,
these age spots on my hands for alabaster skin.

My love may never imitate the Bard, praising
each part, defying time’s winged chariot
as he deifies my locks, my limbs, my gait.
He too has eyes that see, filtered through love,
shaded by the past. My once-black wires
now grey rest light on his shoulder at night.
He does not dream of silken locks of gold.

In the movies, our hero always faces a dilemma
when confronting an unexploded bomb –
Which wire to cut? Should he snip the red one,
the traditional “hot” color, or the green one,
the one that suggests “go”? Or another one
entirely – the black one, the white one?

His hands shake, his wire cutters quiver
as he wipes the sweat from his brow.
One wrong move and the everything
could go up in a blinding flash, a deafening boom.
Sometimes he needs an expert
to talk him through it, but ultimately
he makes the right choice, clips the right lead.
The city, and perhaps the world, is saved.

We have the same choice, every four years.
This time more than ever, if we cut the wrong wire,
this whole place could go up in smoke.

How did my young GSD pup
bite through the machine’s wire
without blowing herself up?
Of course, it blew the fuse
but at least she didn’t expire
though the dryer’s no use
as the knobs are all dodgy.
She systematically trashed her entire
surroundings, that destructive doggy.

I’m not sure if my piece was deleted for content, or if it is a case of my computer still acting goofy. It has been having mini-meltdowns for the last couple of days. Posting again. Basically this is what a mixture of injected cocaine & methamphetamine feels like. No worries. I’ve been clean for a very long time! If it gets deleted, I will know why.

Wired

wired tweaked the jitterin jives
nobody knows I’m even alive
wasted wicked tricked-out shit
somebody gimme or I’m gonna have a fit
hookin’ up hanging out all that jazz
yeah I know I’m a spazz
fix it feed it god I gotta need it
smoke it snort it even boot it
dancin’ doin’ the tweaker shuffle
gotta find some soon
or we’s gonna scuffle
hired fired god I’m tired
this addiction’s hardwired
crash and burn but never learn
gonna end up in an urn
still I’m dancin’
ants in my pants-in
doin’ the tweaker shuffle